


The Leap into Tomorrow

by Lt_Zoe_Jebkanto



Series: The Bonds Between Us [1]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 18:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lt_Zoe_Jebkanto/pseuds/Lt_Zoe_Jebkanto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where has Quantum Leap's Sam Beckett landed himself this time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Leap into Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> A tongue-in-cheek tip of the hat to Scott Bacula, complete with grin!

The Leap Into Tomorrow

Oh, boy!  
Sam Beckett blinked.   
Everything around him was bathed in brilliant light.  
The last after-images of where he’d been were ghosts, paintings still fading from where they’d been imprinted on his retinas, and already he was on his way again.  
To somewhere. To some-when.   
He shook his head and waited for the familiar blue-white dazzle to fade.  
Maybe he’d learned to recognize this as the first sign that he’d completed another leap, but he still found the sensation disorienting.  
Especially in the instant before the details of the world around him began to solidify.  
The dazzle began to change color. White became gold, touched the blue, turned it green. The green and gold took on shades, then shapes that became sunshine pouring hot on his face through gaps in the tree branches overhead. It was morning sunlight, he decided, since its cast was more yellow than the golden hues that would suggest evening.  
Okay, so this was morning, but morning, when?  
He closed his eyes against the brightness, lowered his gaze and, after a moment began to consider his surroundings The bright green leaves and warm air suggested summer. Well, maybe spring if he was sufficiently far south. The real question was… what year was this?   
From somewhere came the sound of a child, laughing. A little further off, a dog barked.   
No clue there.  
Drawing a steadying breath, he looked around. Houses. A tree lined street. Here and there, a vehicle crouched beside the curb. There was something odd about them. A different design than he was familiar with. He realized he was standing on a driveway beside a pale mint-green house. Muffled music sounded from behind one of its closed windows. He frowned. It was not a song he recognized, not even in a style he could name, or say he had any instant liking for. No help in that direction either.  
The place had interesting architecture. Nothing weird, nothing bizarre, just different uses of line and angle than he was familiar with. Still something was odd about it, but what? It was connected to neither telephone nor electric wires! Maybe that was it! Otherwise, it could be almost any single family dwelling in any one of thousands of towns. Attached to it was another structure, obviously a garage, in the same pale green. It had a large white door, on which slanting sunrays painted Sam’s shadow, along with that of the vehicle he stood next to.  
The one whose door handle he was gripping.  
At least he now had enough to get started with. Morning. Himself in a driveway beside a vehicle. Was he about to set out to work? To school? To do the shopping?  
He was almost used to leaping into places and times to put right things that had taken bad turns at some of fate’s crossroads. Pretty soon his friend Al would show up wearing one of those screaming-loud plaid jackets of his and tell him what he was doing here in this quiet, early morning suburban neighborhood. Until then, he’d put aside the where and when questions, focusing instead on the even more basic question.  
Who was he supposed to be this time?  
If that was his vehicle, maybe he could get a good look at his latest face in its rear-view mirror. As he turned toward it, a large dog trotted around the corner of the house. After a glance in his direction, it ignored him and followed its nose to a rain-spout running up the side of the house. Great! His first possible clue. As far as the dog was concerned, he belonged here.  
Still, that didn’t tell him anything about how much of a shock he might be in for. Strange how he always felt like himself on the inside, no matter whether the face of another man, that of a woman or even a child looked back at him from any available reflecting surface.  
The whisper of a breeze ruffled his hair. Overhead, a tree-limb creaked as it intensified. The leaves rustled and murmured between themselves for a moment, then grew still.  
Sam hardly noticed. He hated to admit it, but the car was providing him with absolutely no helpful information, only raising more uncertainties. For one thing, there was no rear-view mirror on this car. Not on this side, anyway. Not even a broken off mounting for one. Shrugging, he tried to find his face in the window of the vehicle.   
No luck. There were too many leaf-cast shadows for a clear view.  
Cupping his hands on either side of his face to block the glare off the glass, he peered in. The light from the windshield caught no shape of a steering wheel. What was there looked to be a flat panel with a faintly glowing screen display.  
Sam caught his breath. Was he…?  
Oh, boy! Was he maybe… just maybe… in the future?  
When the time-travel experiment had begun, his understanding of the quantum physics involved had suggested all journeys would be within his life-time. That meant there would be nothing back before the early nineteen fifties. But going forward? How old was he going to live to be, anyway? What if some future government project demanded he be thrown into cryogenic sleep or something until a way could be determined for returning him to his own time and place? If that was the case, it meant he might be alive until…  
Who knew?  
Time for another look around.  
The dog was back. Still, it ignored him. It barked again, then trotted a short distance up the driveway, where it paused before turning in a sharp circle. Once, twice, it circled, lifting its muzzle to gaze at something overhead, then barked again and raised itself on its hind legs.   
“What’s wrong, boy?” asked Sam. As he turned toward the dog, the door to the mint-green house opened. A slender woman with honey-blonde hair pulled back in a loose pony-tail appeared.   
“I thought you’d left for work. Don’t tell me you forgot your code card again!” she began, more laughter than reprimand in her tone.  
“No, I… uh…” He started, his grip tightening around the door-handle, his thumb fumbling at its underside for the button that would release the locking mechanism.  
It wasn’t there.  
Oh boy!  
How was he going to get the thing open without rousing her curiosity.  
He cleared his throat. “No, I didn’t forget. Not the code card, anyway. I just-”   
“Sam? Don’t turn around.” From behind him Al’s voice came, low and careful. Almost ominous. “We’re cutting this one awfully close. Right above you…”  
Overhead, there was a low, cracking sound, almost drowned in the dog’s sudden frantic barking. Sam’s gaze followed the line of its up-flung head as something hurtled toward him through sunlight, through shadow, coming faster, growing larger.  
As if from far off, he heard the woman shriek, the swinging door clattering against the wall of the house as she bolted forward.  
Instinct brought his hands up, reaching, snatching. He staggered under weight and momentum as he clutched something warm to his chest.  
Blue eyes rounded as the child gazed into his face, full of surprise but, for that first brief instant, little or no fear. “Daddy!” he exclaimed. Then realization of danger caught up with him and he let out an ear-piercing wail.  
It completely drowned out the woman’s running footsteps. All at once her arms were coming around both him and the child who couldn’t have been more than four or five years old. But he caught her first words as they tumbled out in a rush of horror and relief while she hugged the two of them close.  
“Whatever it was you forgot, I’m so glad you did! My God, Charlie, if you’d already been in the skimmer…!”   
Then they were fading, even as her relief gave way to anger. “Trip Tucker! How many times have I told you to stay out of that tree…”  
Then everything around him was bathed in brilliant light and Sam realized that already he was on his way again…


End file.
